


Helmsman's Sorrows

by AvidDreamWriter



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Eventual Smut, General fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-10
Updated: 2012-09-10
Packaged: 2017-11-13 22:27:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/508375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvidDreamWriter/pseuds/AvidDreamWriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We all know how the ancestors died and that some of them have now met up in Dream Bubbles. But what happens when The Sufferer and The Psiioniic finally catch up with each other in the Dream Bubble? Psiioniic isn't one for telling stories, but Sufferer is all ears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first two parts were written in first person. I'm typing part three now and it's switched to third person and it actually sounds pretty good, if not better, than the first person parts. It also switches tenses in part one, but that's fine because I intended to do that.  
> I'm not good at writing summaries, ahaha....

I was forced to watch him die. We all were, Dolorosa, Disciple, and I. But I was the only one severely chained up. The other two were free, the only security against them being sheer numbers. Don’t get me wrong, they’re good fighters, but up against multiple high bloods, they wouldn’t last very long. I, on the other hand, could’ve done it. Why didn’t I? I could have blasted the whole crowd to ruins, killed them all, and I could have saved him. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not long after we were captured, Her Imperious Condescension fitted me with a dampener of sorts, a blindfold, if you wish, that completely cut me from my psiioniics. It pained me when Dolorosa and Disciple screamed for me to do something, I felt so helpless, and I’m sure they knew it was pointless because Her Imperious Condescension made a show of putting the blinder on me before I was let out to watch the execution.

It took too long for him to succumb to the pain and die. He was strong through it until the end, but I could tell he was in so much pain. And it pained me to see him like that. I fought the trolls holding my chains, but even if I could get them off, more would replace them, and the chains were far too heavy for me to lift my arms even an inch, nonetheless to my face so I could remove the blinder. It’s not like Dolorosa or Disciple could come and help, they had watchful eyes on them and they were broken. After what seemed like forever, he looked at each of us in turn, ending with me, sadly smiling. He said the Vast Expletive and was quiet.

I didn’t know what happened to Dolorosa and Disciple, but I heard their cries as I was dragged away, struggling against my captors as much as I could, calling out to them, that I would see them again. But, that was the last time I saw Disciple or Dolorosa, but I heard stories from The Condesce. They were biased stories, but they were stories all the same. I was mad at Dolorosa’s fate, but I heard nothing of the Disciple except that she had secluded herself somewhere and that was that. The Condesce did tell me, however, that they had coined a new name for him. That name was The Sufferer. I remember thinking to myself (on the rare occasion that I was alone and without The Condesce) how that name fitted him very well, and it made me laugh sometimes.

And then, one day, while I was thinking, I realized that I could see them all again with the help of Dream Bubbles. I was certain that the others were already in dream bubbles on the grounds that trolls don’t last very long in slavery or out in the wilderness regardless of their projected life span because of their blood. But to get there, I had to die first. I had probably died sweeps ago and The Condesce just revived me. Over and over again, extending my life well past the point where I would have died naturally. And it hit me that I was grafted into her ship. The very ship I could use to end her, and also my life. So I fought the system. I defied it in any way I could, the discipline protocols reacting every time, so I kept fighting. And she kept reviving me every time I was disciplined so much that it killed me. Eventually, I gave up, because she’d keep doing it as many times as I killed myself.

So many sweeps passed that I lost count. The Condesce came in the room, and even though she tried to hide it, I could hear the worry in her voice. She said “Take me home, dear helmsman. Do it as fast as you can, I’m tired of traveling”, and I did. I pushed the ship, and myself, to its limits, The Condesce there in the room, pacing, having to revive me multiple times.

We didn’t make it back to Alternia. We were caught in the Vast Grub, and I couldn’t have been happier. I felt the disconnect between ship and helmsman as the ship was destroyed, signaling that I had finally died, and The Condesce couldn’t do anything about it. I would finally be able to see all of my friends again. But it also meant that I would see The Condesce once again, but in Dream Bubbles, she wouldn’t be able to harm me.

I wandered various Dream Bubbles, searching for the one that would bring us all together again. I’m close, I can tell, but I’m not close enough yet. Sufferer, no, Kankri, please wait for me. I’ll be there soon, I promise.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I didn't over-do or under-do the lisp that Psiioniic has... Ahaha...  
> And also, I started using their confirmed names because it was easier than "The Sufferer" or "The Psiioniic" all the time.

Time works differently in the Dream Bubbles, if it exists at all. Honestly, if my sense of time was right, quite a few sweeps passed before I actually found the right Bubble. I knew it was the right one because of how familiar it was. The other Bubbles built like their Bubble didn’t feel right. In those Bubbles, I felt excluded, different, but in theirs, I felt right at home. It wasn’t the familiarity of the décor or scenery, per say, it was just that feeling the Bubble gave off because it was created by my friends.

I wandered around, taking in the scenery, when I finally saw someone. That someone was Dolorosa, and I was so happy to see her. We chatted a bit, her mostly taking note of how scrawny I was, and she gave me a basic vision of the layout of the Dream Bubble. She said that I could find Disciple around, and that she was most likely up in the mountains she had imagined, but she’d gotten more used to coming out recently. Dolorosa warned me that The Condesce was around also, but she had changed, and apparently was greatly worried for my well-being since I hadn’t shown up at the same time she did. The one thing I was happy about was that the other high bloods hadn’t come yet, so things would be relatively peaceful.

Then, we started talking about him. Dolorosa told me that he created the original Bubble and left it that way until the others came and started messing with it. He would always oversee things (having the best memory of them all) as the memories of the lands began to meld together into one. Dolorosa said that after that, he’d lost his luster for leading, and left them to do as they pleased short of destroying each other or the Bubble. She said that he seemed sad and lonely, and eventually they figured out it was because he didn’t see me. He was a smart troll and had figured out that if The Condesce was there, I should have been there with her, but I wasn’t. So, he assumed that I was lost for good. And yet, there I was, standing in the same Dream Bubble as him, talking to his mother.

Before I left her to go find him, she noticed that I still had the interface goggles on and looked like a complete mess. She pulled the goggles off and helped me imagine myself without the injuries and some new, less tattered clothes. I thanked and hugged her, and as I walked away, she reminded me to call everyone by name because here, we weren’t revolutionaries, we were trolls just trying to survive, but most of all, we were friends. She told me to “go to him, he’s not that hard to find”, so I did.  
I ran through the various areas of the Bubble, excited to finally see him after so long. But, as I went along, the excitement died down as I went through the Bubble not finding him. Sitting to think at the base of a tree, I remembered that of all the lands we went to, his favorite one was The Land of Night and Surf. I had passed many beaches in my wanderings (probably the doing of The Condesce [Meenah, as Dolorosa told me] since she lived in the sea most her life), but none of them were that beach. Maybe if I looked harder, I’d find the right beach. So, I kept walking, and I did find it.

He was sitting close to the water, leaning back on his hands. He looked… different, younger. Like he did when we all were younger and started playing the game. But it was still him. I could feel it in my gut that this was my Kankri. I walked close enough to him that I could put a hand on his shoulder, but I didn’t touch him. “Kankri?”

His whole body jerked in surprise and he looked around to find the source of my voice before he finally turned around. “Mituna..” Kankri stood up and looked up at me (had he gotten shorter, or had I gotten taller?), smiling before wrapping me in a hug, picking me up from the sand. When had he gotten so strong? I remember me being able to pick him up.

I put my hands on his arms and smiled. “Kankri, pleathe put me down, you know I don’t like heighth.”

“That’s a lie, and you know it, Mituna.” He replied, setting me down anyway. “What took you so long getting here? I thought that after Meenah arrived, you’d be here not long after because I knew about what happened to you…”

“I got lotht.” I brushed some hair out of his face and sighed. “Don’t get me wrong, I wath looking for thith bubble with all my might. But I gueth my death thent me far away from thith bubble and it took me too long to get here obviouthly.”

Kankri laughed and ran his hands up and down my arms. “Damn, Mituna, you’re skinny. I can fix that easily if you want me to.”

“Kankri, I wath thkinny before I wath put in that ship. You jutht never notithed.”

“I didn’t?”

“No, you didn’t.” I took his hand and played with it a bit. “Tho, why don’t you tell me what I mithed?”


	3. Chapter 3

Kankri and Mituna talked for what felt like hours to them. Meenah, Latula, and Porrim would check on them periodically, but they never lingered long, letting the two catch up. Meenah spent the least amount of time watching them, not wanting Mituna to freak out at her presence. There wasn’t much for them to catch up on. Dream Bubbles rarely changed, although they did cross paths with a few interesting ones on occasion, and being a Helmsman wasn’t very entertaining because whoever was the Helmsman wouldn’t see the new worlds he was piloting the ship to. Eventually, they ended up chatting, sitting further away from the waves as the tide changed, Kankri’s head on Mituna’s shoulder.

Kankri was the first to speak after a long silence. “So, Mituna.. Was this reunion like you imagined?”

“Imagined?” Mituna looked at him, tilting his head a bit. “Kankri, I acthepted that you were dead a thweep after you had actually died. I didn’t even think that we would thee each other again until I remembered the Dream Bubbleth.”

“Oh… Did it hurt? When you died, I mean..”

“I can’t thay it did becauthe it happened tho fatht.. Kankri, I’m thorry that I let thothe trollth hurt you like they did. I with I wath thtronger back then. I could’ve thaved you, I could’ve thaved uth all. But-”

“Mituna Captor, I am not dealing with your self-pitying bullshit.” Kankri said, turning so he faced Mituna. “You did this far too often when you were alive, and I’m not going to let you beat yourself up in death. And that’s final.”

“Kankri, you don’t get it! I wath pithed that I couldn’t thave you or the other two. If I had ethcaped-”

“You would have just been caught again. And no amount of psiioniics, high level or not, would’ve saved your ass then.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “And don’t even think about blaming yourself for my death, I would have died at some point. Hell, I may have lived forever, who knows? As far as I know, I was the only one with my blood, and I don’t know what happened to the others.”

“Don’t get me thtarted on your mutant privilege bullthit, Kankri. If anything counts, I may ath well have been a mutant too!”

“Just because you have two buldges doesn’t mean that other yellowbloods didn’t.”

Mituna snorted and crossed his arms. “How could you confirm thith? My whole community wath burned to the ground, and all the trollth in it killed. I’m lucky that I wath out and trying to hide from the droneth!”

“Implying that I had pailed another yellowblood in my lifetime, are you? Newsflash: I haven’t.”

“Then why would you athume that all yellowbloodth had two buldgeth? Maybe I am a mutant for fuckth thake. I don’t know nor do I care.”

“Why did you bring it up in the first place? Mituna, you’re such an ass sometimes.”

“Maybe you thould change the way you think. I wath hoping that we could go back to what we had, but if you’re jutht going to pity me, tho be it. We can be kithmethith for all I give a shit at thith point, becauthe right now; I really, really, want to punch your face in.” Mituna got up and hurried off the beach, away from Kankri, who wanted to go after him, but he stayed sitting in the sand.

Porrim, on the other hand, decided that now was a good time to come out of wherever she was hiding to stand by Kankri. “You fucked up.”

“Shut it, Porrim, I know I did.”

“And I know that you want your matespritship with him back. That fling you had with Dolorosa didn’t help either of you, and in the end, it’s the thing that’s going to tear you apart. I can tell that even though he wants to be your matesprit, even in death god forbid, he still thinks that you probably have feelings for her still.”

“She’s changed, Porrim, we all have. Although, she still insists on secluding herself and writing down my teachings, I do appreciate that, I have no feelings for her. What we had was simply a morailegience gone wrong, and now it’s gotten worse.”

She crossed her arms and smiled. “So why don’t you go get him before Meenah does? She’s still fascinated by him, regardless of if he has his powers or not.”

“You think I would believe for a second that those two had something while he was a Helmsman? He was practically brainless while he was integrated into her ship! And don’t get me started on how much he opposed the idea from the first time he was integrated into one of the ships. He hated, no, he loathed being in that ship.”

“And who made him feel like that, hm? Was it just a simple hatred of being there, or the fact that someone put it into his brain that this wasn’t right and that he could do more with his life, no matter how short it was?”

Kankri blinked slowly and stood up, muscles straining as he did so. “Well… I did, after his community was destroyed. I was sure he hated me back then-”

“But he didn’t, did he? Remember that I raised you, Kankri, regardless of what we look like now. I watched you grow alongside Mituna, and I watched all of you when Dolorosa joined us. I probably know the three of you better than you do yourselves, and I wasn’t even a morail to any of you.” Porrim sighed and wiped some sand off her dress. “If you leave now, you can probably catch him before he wanders too far and gets to Meenah’s castle.”

“You think he’d actually get that far? I mean, he could just stop somewhere and think for a while.”

“Kankri, you underestimate my knowledge of Mituna. When he needs to think or if he’s upset, he walks until he can’t walk any more. You’re lucky I created a section specifically for that outside of Meenah’s castle with her permission as long as I destructed it later. If he were to reach that far, Latula would be there to keep him in it by changing the way it looks.”

“Porrim you are a genius!” Kankri said, giving her a quick hug. “I’ll get in touch with you later, because this might go right for once.”

“What do you mean, “for once”? This should be the only time I should have to do this, regardless of how much you two would flip between matesprits and kismesises. Now go.”  
He nodded and waved at her, running off in the direction Mituna went. How far could one troll go in the span of the conversation he had with Porrim?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I somewhat feel like this went WAY too fast, but I like this chapter the way it is...


End file.
